City of Basketball Love

Michael Bullock (@thebullp_n)
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NEFFSVILLE — When thoughts of the last Manheim Twp. victory in a District 3 basketball game started flowing just outside the Blue Streaks’ locker room, Zach Oldac couldn’t help but grin slightly and even chuckle a little. He wasn’t old enough to attend school just yet.

Tyler Crespo may be one year in front of Oldac, but he wasn’t in school either.

Yet when those two step inside one of the doors at Manheim Twp. High School sometime today, they may get serenaded by their classmates and friends after playing significant roles Tuesday night in the Blue Streaks’ 52-39 conquest of Lancaster-Lebanon League playmate Conestoga Valley.

While Oldac netted 12 points, grabbed four rebounds and doled out an assist — eight of his 12 points came in the opening half — the electrically charged Crespo played facilitator throughout the District 3 Class 6A opener while scoring eight points, snaring three boards and dealing three assists.

Oh, by the way, it was Township’s first District 3 success since 2005.

“It feels good to get one for the school,” said Oldac, who was really effective around the tin throughout yet showed his range in the second half by burying an 18-foot jumper. “[We just need to] keep rolling with the momentum, keep going farther and farther and hopefully win a district championship.”

Brendan Mellott paced the Streaks (18-6) with 13 points, Cameron Mulcavage chimed in with seven off the bench, while Tyler Vicidomini and Hilton Ridley each finished with six as Township led from the first whistle to the final horn. The 6-2 Ridley also paced the Streaks with eight rebounds.

Although fifth-seeded Township was able to skip past one L-L Section 1 side — the Streaks split a pair of regular-season outings with Conestoga Valley (11-12) — they’ll find another one waiting in suburban Lebanon for Friday night’s quarterfinals. And that’s No. 4 Cedar Crest.

Township and Crest also split their regular-season series, as each prevailed on the road.

“We’ve just got to win the next one and keep going,” Crespo said. “It’s nothing we can’t handle.”

Logan Monroe paced the Buckskins with a game-high 14 points and five boards.

Perhaps a bit anxious when the ball went up at the start, even the extended 3-2 zone CV tossed at Township in the opening quarter couldn’t unnerve Matt Johns’ determined club. And when Mellott caressed Ridley’s wicked skip pass without a hitch and canned a trey, it was game on.

Extremely efficient early at the offensive end — the Streaks bagged seven of their first eight pops from the field — Township’s first five buckets came from five different players. Helps explain why the home side was holding a 20-10 advantage some eight minutes into the all-or-nothing fray.

“We’ve just got to all come out, stay calm and stick to the game plan,” Crespo said. “As long as we stick to the game plan, we’ll be fine because Coach does a good job working on that with us.”

Yet even though Township’s cushion expanded to as many as 16 points (30-14) with 2:33 remaining in the half, CV had sliced its deficit back to 10 on Jordan Ransing’s finish at 0:56.

Content to wait for a really, really good look, that opportunity finally arose when the 6-3 Oldac spotted a divide in the CV defense and took off for the hoop. One slick score at the hoop later — he was fouled on the play, too — the Streaks’ talented sophomore completed the conventional three-point play.

Up 13 at the break, the Streaks were juiced.

“Three points are a lot and it looks good,” Oldac admitted.

“It helps a lot and gives us more confidence, stuff like that.”

“Momentum for us is huge, because I feel like we play a lot off momentum,” Crespo added. “That’s why Coach sometimes tells us before a game, especially sometimes when we don’t have a big crowd, that we have to create our own energy and we just have to play hard.”

Plus, the Streaks were halfway home and that long-awaited District 3 dub was well in sight. While CV repeatedly worked the ball inside to the burly Monroe — he had six points in the third quarter — the ‘Skins were able to pull within eight (42-34) with the final eight minutes yet to be played.

CV never got closer.

Yielding just a handful of points the rest of the way to Brad Herr’s bunch, Township used its consistently gritty man defense to hold down the Buckskins and cashed in at the other end when opportunities arose. Ridley, who provided primary defensive cover on Austin Monroe (7 points/6 assists), snared defensive rebounds on three consecutive CV possessions.

“Hilton’s a great player,” Crespo said. “He always works hard and we can always count on him to get those rebounds and [make] those hustle plays. He outhustles everyone.”

While CV was still within nine (48-39) following Lucas Monroe’s finish with just over two minutes to play, Mellott and Crespo took turns canning two-shot trips to the foul line to close it out.

Township also played keepaway for the final minute or so.

“At the end, it was just controlling the ball, making good decisions and not turning the ball over,” said Crespo, who recently netted the 1,000th point of his three-year varsity career.

The Streaks, who have banked five of their six losses by five points or fewer, also were 17-for-22 at the free-throw line. They canned six of nine in the final quarter.

“That was big,” Crespo admitted.

“For the last five or six practices, we have been just drilling them on end-of-game situations,” Johns added. “Time and score, when is it time to be slow, when is it time to take layup opportunities and I thought, with the exception of a couple possessions when we got going a little too fast and we took a timeout and regrouped a little, I think from the five-minute mark on we just killed clock.

“The only errors we made were when we didn’t knock down free throws. I was pretty pleased.”

Getting needed balance throughout — especially with CV determined to keep a lid on the elusive 5-9 Crespo — all six of Township’s players who reached the scorebook netted between six and 13 points.

“All year, they’ve been focusing on [Crespo],” Oldac said. “So me and Brendan kind of had to learn that if he’s not going to get all of his points, someone has to get them.

“That means spreading it around and having other people pick him up.”

“When the ball is moving, we do have a lot of guys who can score,” Johns added.

Johns, however, was even more pleased with his squad’s work when CV had the ball.

“I’m happy about the balance, I’m most pleased about the 39 points [against],” Johns continued. “We’ve had games when we defended really, really well for three quarters and when it was fourth-quarter time it wasn’t there. We gave up too many straight-line drives.

“I thought we did a really nice job of not letting them get momentum.”

Sum it all up and Township was moving on to the quarterfinals — for the first time in forever.

“Just means a lot, because the last couple years I feel like we haven’t lived up to our expectations,” admitted Crespo, possibly referring to last year’s District 3 opener when the Streaks had a lead with just seconds to go yet wound up losing in OT. “Just coming out and winning the first one is a big deal.

“Just gotta move on to the next one, keep winning and having fun with it.”

“All you can do is beat the teams that are put in front of you,” Johns added. “Conestoga Valley was put in front of us, and I thought we did a nice job of doing what we needed to do to advance past them.”

OTHER DISTRICT 3 PLAYOFF RESULTS

CLASS 6A — OPENING ROUND

No. 9 Dallastown at No. 8 Central York, ppd to 2-21, 7 p.m.

No. 7 Wilson West Lawn 70, No. 10 Carlisle 49

No. 6 Harrisburg 56, No. 11 Cedar Cliff 45